Chapter: Heart Demon Avatar

The conferring of gods by Great Qian was not a unilateral decision by the imperial court, and the bestowed entities were roughly divided into three categories.

The first consisted of great demons and demon kings residing among mountains and rivers whose strength was formidable yet who did no evil, whom the imperial court placated with divine titles, such as the Water God of Yangping Lake.

The second comprised local worthies who, during their lifetimes, gathered the will and faith of the common people, thus gaining the recognition of the terrestrial and subterranean water veins.

The third category, smallest in number, comprised natural spirits of mountain and water veins who could directly control the mountain and water networks even without imperial enfeoffment.

The mountain god of Coiled Snake Mountain belonged to the second category.

Worthies who achieved divinity through virtue were more willing to protect their localities and eliminate disasters and suffering for the common people; this was, first, driven by the kind nature they possessed in life, and second, because mortals conferring divinity required a vast amount of incense-fire power to nourish their golden bodies.

With the netherworld and the mortal world benefiting mutually, this ought to have been an exceptionally fine state of affairs.

"Willfully degenerating? How many good deeds did this deity do in life, repairing bridges and paving roads, supporting orphans and widows, and exhausting my family fortune. After death, I protect the region, answering every plea, and have saved countless living people!"

The mountain god sat upright in the hall, his expression ferocious. "What qualifications does a mere petty runner of the Demon-Slaying Bureau have to say that this deity has willfully degenerated!"

"I'm in a hurry, drop that look!"

Spirit light flashed across Zhou Yi's eyes. The truly golden-radiant appearance of the Coiled Snake Mountain god statue had already shifted to its true state: demonic energy was surging, and countless wronged souls wailed and shrieked within the demonic energy.

A streak of sword qi slashed toward the main hall of the mountain god temple, shattering the illusion instantly and restoring it to a dilapidated ruin.

The attendant maids and boy servants on either side successively revealed their true forms: wolf-headed with human bodies, fox-headed with fox tails, half-skeletal and half-human, all of them demons and monsters.

The stone-carved mountain god statue that had originally snapped into two pieces spliced back together, only for pitch-black and blood-red gore to continuously ooze from the fracture.

"Courting death!"

The mountain god statue spat out turbid, murky black qi, resembling thick paste.

This black qi was a malevolent art formed by a mixture of earth-vein baleful intent, the grievances of living beings, and the hostility of the dead, capable of tarnishing the dharma bodies and magic treasures of practitioners.

Once tainted, one would constantly suffer from the torment of grievance and baleful qi, with heart demons breeding and evil thoughts arising one after another.

Zhou Yi similarly opened his mouth and spat. The purplish-red Earthly Pole True Flame transformed into a long, fiery dragon that swept across the mountain god temple.

"Ah..."

Piercing, miserable screams rang out. The ghosts watching the battle were burned to ashes the moment they met the fire.

Dao attainment increased by one year.

In the blink of an eye, only the mountain god, roasted pitch-black, remained in the temple. The Qi of Earth Sha guarded his entire body, barely withstanding the burning of the true flame.

The mountain god had fused with the mountain and river earth veins and, situated within the bounds of the enfeoffed mountain range, could manipulate earth-vein rock and stone to fight.

Rumble...

The ground split open-not because the mountain god intended to duel with Zhou Yi, but because the mountain god temple sought to flee into the depths of the earth.

"Thinking of running without Zhou's consent!"

Zhou Yi waved his hand, and the Purple Ying Sword plunged deep into the earth, directly pinning the earth veins in place.

Sensing that the earth-vein power had become as unmovable as iron and stone, the mountain god finally felt fear.

Having served as an enfeoffed mountain god for over a hundred years, he had never encountered a powerhouse capable of pinning earth veins with human might; this was extremely likely to be a legendary Spirit Refining expert.

"Spare my life, Immortal. This minor deity was also compelled by circumstances..."

"Compelled by circumstances? Is this how you're compelled?"

Zhou Yi's dharma power transformed into a massive hand that uprooted the mountain god temple entirely.

Beneath the temple foundations, layers upon layers of piled white bones numbered no fewer than several thousand, or even ten thousand.

The common saying went that petty officials were the most avaricious, and by the same token, a mountain god who held sway over mountain ranges and fell into demonhood harmed people far more conveniently than a demon king.

A seemingly coincidental landslide or mudslide orchestrated from behind the scenes could easily submerge villages and towns.

Having fallen into the grip of dharma power and left to be kneaded at Zhou Yi's whim, the mountain god ought to have knelt and begged for his life; yet upon beholding the white bones beneath the earth, he actually stirred up rich, dense demonic energy once more.

"These people all deserved to die! Every last one of them deserved to die! For a hundred years of favorable weather, I saw no gratitude from them. But the moment a drought struck, when rain-praying failed, they killed my temple priest, demolished my temple, and smashed my golden body!"

"After two hundred painstaking years of doing good in life and death, it exchanged for my cultivation being ruined in a single day. Do they not deserve to die?"

"This reason isn't enough..."

A thought stirred in Zhou Yi's mind, and the massive hand of dharma power violently clenched, reducing the mountain god temple and the divine statue alike to a patch of shattered stones.

The Demon and Monster Compendium flipped through hundreds of pages, and an indistinct, blurry illustration lit up at a corner.

"How is there no reward..."

Zhou Yi sensed that blurry illustration, and a piece of intelligence transmitted into his mind.

"The mountain god turned out to be an avatar of the Heart Demon Dao Lord!"

With a corner of the heart demon compendium lit up, Zhou Yi could vaguely sense the location of the heart demon, and the direction pointed precisely toward Luo Prefecture.

Zhou Yi's brow furrowed slightly before he transformed into a streak of escaping light and returned to the brush.

Yan Chixiao gazed toward the mountain god temple with a puzzled expression while the scale horse beneath him uneasily paced and trod the earth.

"Captain Yan, let's go."

"Did you hear the commotion over there?"

"It was probably mountain stones collapsing caused by mountain rain..."

Luo Prefecture.

Tong County, a mere hundred miles from the Luo Capital.

A chorus of reading aloud drifted from the private school of the Chu Household.

Master Xin, who was responsible for teaching, lay slumped over his desk sound asleep.

Among them, a mischievous child blocked his face with a book, playing finger-guessing with a companion in secret, the loser getting flicked on the forehead.

"Hoo-"

Master Xin suddenly sat up straight, his waist and back rigid, not a shred of confusion or drowsiness remaining in his eyes.

"Number Nine is dead... How could that be? I clearly already admonished him to act with caution."

Master Xin was precisely the Heart Demon Dao Lord dispatched by the Lord of the Six Paths to infiltrate Great Qian and investigate Jialan's cause of death.

Over the span of a decade or so, he had already refined more than a dozen heart demon avatars, scattering them across all sixteen provinces to gather countless pieces of information.

The mountain god was one of the heart demon's most crucial avatars.

Deities linked with earth veins were equivalent to having earth veins suppress their fate, and transitioning from divinity to demonhood was exceptionally rare.

Five years ago, the heart demon was passing through Coiled Snake Mountain and happened to encounter a rain-praying sacrifice. The heart demon, who had not ventured out of the mountains for long, grew interested and blended into the crowd to experience the long-absent, bustling mortal atmosphere.

As a result, several successive attempts at rain-praying failed, despite the enormous expenditures incurred.

The rain-praying common people flew into a rage out of humiliation, beating the temple priest who presided over the sacrifice to death, dismantling the mountain god temple, and smashing the mountain god statue.

The mountain god's golden body shattered almost entirely, turning from a deity into a demon.

The heart demon seized the opportunity to infiltrate and impart evil cultivation arts to the mountain god.

In order to survive, the mountain god blood-sacrificed thousands of common people, re-condensed his golden body, and gradually transformed into one of the heart demon avatars.

"Heart linked to heart, returning to the origin and tracing the source!"

Master Xin pinched a dharma seal, and the sporadic fragments of memory flashed before his eyes.

A sword that fixed the earth veins, a massive hand of dharma power...

"This sword... Could it be that very one..."

Although Master Xin's avatars across various places did not occupy high positions, they possessed trusted personal servants by the sides of those in high positions.

Among them, the emergence of the Pure Yang Immortal Sword was one of the major events that had occurred in the Luo Capital in recent years.

"An immortal sword!"

Greed flashed across Master Xin's eyes, accompanied by a trace of fear.

Pondering for a moment, he packed up his books, stood up, and left the Chu Household's private school.

His original plan had been to lure the young master of the Chu Household and refine him into a heart demon avatar, which perhaps would yield unexpected gains.

The background of the Tong County Chu Household was unclear even to successive county magistrates; they only knew the ties ran deep and seemed connected to the palace. However, among the gentry and wealthy merchants near the Luo Capital, if one casually tossed a brick, eight out of ten could drag up connections with the palace.

While keeping accounts and calculating ledgers, the heart demon avatar in the Capital had accidentally overheard eunuchs out on purchasing errands chatting idly.

"Our household travels precisely through the Chu Household's connections. With this relationship of Eunuch Chu, could this purchasing job ever fall into someone else's hands?"

"The Chu Household? Could Foster Father be referring to the one in Tong County..."

"Who else could it be?"

Tong County, the Chu Household, Eunuch Chu...

Who would have imagined that Master Chu of obscure Tong County had behind him the overwhelmingly powerful Chief Eunuch of the Palace Attendants Bureau, Grand Superintendent of the Palace Attendants Bureau, supreme pinnacle of the realm, and one of Emperor Jingtai's left and right arms.

Chu Eunuch.

The heart demon served as a private school tutor in the Chu Household precisely to lure and refine the direct young master of the Chu Household into a heart demon avatar, which perhaps would allow him to directly overhear certain secrets of Great Qian and thereby accomplish the task assigned by the Lord of the Six Paths.

"Fine though the Chu Household may be, what does it have to do with me? If I can acquire the immortal sword, why not sit upon the throne of the Lord of the Six Paths myself!"

Master Xin went to take his leave of Master Chu, claiming that the Capital grand examinations were imminent and he intended to enter seclusion to study and strive for a scholarly reputation.

Hearing this, Master Chu produced a hundred taels of fine silver to pre-congratulate Master Xin on placing on the imperial roll.

The heart demon left the Chu Household and journeyed all the way by escape light to Flying Cloud Province, where the Naked Demon Cult was in rebellion, to transmit a message to the Blood Demon Path Lord through a disciple of the Heart Demon Sect.

"Money is plentiful, people are fools, hurry over!"